Den of Wolves
by Cacotechny
Summary: "Men can change. Sometimes they have to fall. Sometimes they have to leap." When a near death experience opens Torn's eyes to the corruption around him, a fledgling Underground gains an unexpected ally. Torn wonders whether, in the end, did he leave the wolves or join them? [Pre-Jak 2, M for language/violence. Multi-chapter.]
1. Prologue

Rain fell. It burbled in the gutters on its way into the sewers. It plinked on metal roof tops and discarded cans. It soaked to the bone. It shrouded buildings in fine mist and water droplets. It covered everything in sheets of quicksilver, leaving no brick, no crack, no stretch of pavement untouched. The clatter of raindrops drowned out humming zoomer engines. It hushed footsteps. It dulled the abundance of sounds of an otherwise busy city.

Tucked into the shadowed corner of an alley just shy of an intersection in the Slums, Torn surveyed the surroundings. He coughed softly and pulled the collar of his plainclothes coat tighter about his neck. He buried his face a little deeper into the red scarf covering the bottom half of his face and squinted into the rain. The dark murk of the rainy night made having to work the streets without a mask much easier. He stuck to a hood and the scarf tonight.

The activity in Haven City never ceased to amaze him, even on the darkest and wettest of nights. Zoomers crept around each other in organized chaos overhead. People hurried here and there, shielding their heads from the rain as they darted from cover to cover to stay dry. Storefronts stayed lit all night. The flow of life pumped through the city like blood through veins, steady and indispensable.

These days, though, that vitality had become strained. Harried and haggard faces passed by him in the rain. Movement seemed more frantic, more animalistic - make it to the next paycheck, make it to the next rations delivery. Find a way to pay the rent. Don't get arrested. Life stopped being about the mere pursuit of happiness and started to become more about basic survival.

Torn coughed again, harder this time. It rattled in his chest.

"I'm looking for the nearest watering hole."

The voice came from behind him, too articulate and clear to have come from the average street drunk. Torn didn't turn around.

"The Hip Hog's a fine establishment over in the Port."

"Evening, Captain."

Torn turned around this time. This was his contact – a man of average height with brown spiked hair and a red scarf also obscuring the bottom half of his face.

"What's the word, Cass?"

"There's a big meeting tonight. I'm hearing that the Shadow wants to plan their big move against the Baron."

Torn felt a thrill run through him, but the pain in his chest helped his expression stay neutral. "When does it start?"

"Not too much longer. If we don't go now, I'll be late, and they'll notice."

"Lead the way."

Cass nodded and stepped past him into the street. Torn turned to follow. His heart hammered in his chest, and the ache in his left lung started to throb with it; Dead Town still lingered even weeks later. Ashelin was probably right that he should have stayed in the hospital longer.

He just didn't have the time.

"Thank you, sir, for taking interest in this project. It took a while to make any headway with this group, which, erm, might have made leadership lose faith. But I'll be damned if these people aren't secretive. I get having a thorough screening process helps prevent people like me from getting in, but if they don't find a faster way, it'll be their undoing. They're too slow. I think this next move, though, whatever it is, will get them out and in the public eye."

In addition to their police force status, the Krimzon Guard had a very capable intelligence network. Tattoos being less than ideal to appear innocuous, Intel members did not receive them. Two of these members, Cass and one other spy that Torn couldn't remember, were selected about a year back to infiltrate a small rebel group calling themselves The Underground. Only Cass made it in. The other spy still hadn't been found.

Count Veger had recently started to mention the project with more sarcasm rather than sincerity. Two weeks ago, Cass was very nearly at risk of just getting left on his own in the wolves' den; the KG waited for no man. Then, he delivered a report about this impending meeting. Torn, fresh from the hospital and from a rather startling revelation about himself and his surroundings, latched onto the project to invigorate the effort.

"It's too risky to get you inside with everybody, but I can get you close enough for a short-range comm recorder to work. You'll be able to listen to everything that's going on."

"Have you been able to meet the Shadow?"

"Not yet. He usually has a front man to deliver missions and other bullshit to the lower ranking folks, but he does come out when there are big scale meetings like tonight. I think he used to be holed up in Dead Town and when the district fell, it forced him into the Slums, because he's been around the hideout a lot lately. He plays real close to the vest, this guy. I haven't even been able to get a name from anybody."

Success and a willing ear to bend made Cass talkative. Torn gritted his teeth. The spy seemed downright tickled to finally show off the fruits of his labor. It'd be a damn shame to ruin it.

They doubled back on their trail at least twice to shake off any potential tails. KG Intelligence was notoriously paranoid, to the point that Torn wouldn't be surprised if they'd sent someone else to monitor them monitoring meeting. They didn't come across anyone, though, and before long, Cass paused in an alleyway. He gestured across the street from them to a door under a weak fluorescent light. In faint relief on the door was a symbol – the Baron's seal with a hammer striking the crown. Not exactly subtle, but easily missed if you weren't looking for it.

Cass handed him a small communicator. Torn put in the earpiece and turned it on. "Like I said, you should be able to hear everything that goes on. I'll come back to you here when it's done."

Torn nodded once. Then, Cass turned to leave. He didn't make it out of the alley.

"Make a sound, and you'll find it hard to do so much talking with a bullet in your brain."

Torn couldn't see the expression on the spy's face. The man's back was to him, and Torn held a restraining arm around his neck, a pistol pressed to the back of his skull. By the way he stiffened in Torn's grip, he imagined 'tickled' was no longer accurate.

"Now, I'm going to let you go, but you so much as sneeze, and you're done." Torn released Cass and pushed him forward a step in one swift movement. When the spy didn't run, he prodded him between the shoulder blades with his gun. "Go open that door."

Cass headed forward. Torn stayed within arm's reach behind him. The spy didn't turn around, but his shoulders were tensed up. "What the fuck are you doing?" he hissed over the rain. His tone belied more alarm and surprise than Torn expected. He would have been ready to respond to anger, to cuff the insolence out of the man and sneer in the face of some loyalist pig. The betrayal in Cass's voice threw him off guard. Fear cut through him like a sudden shot of ice into his veins, and he shut his eyes briefly.

 _Dead Town. People left to die. Citizens starving in the streets. Dark Eco experiments. Do what's right._

"Shut up."

Even in the rain, he could see Cass's shoulders shaking. He fumbled at the door.

"You're gonna get us killed."

"I said _shut up_."

The door opened finally. Torn grabbed the back of Cass's collar and pushed him ahead, the gun practically glued to the back of his head. A close, damp warmness spread over them when they stepped inside from the couple dozen people crammed into the small space of the hideout. The sound of the rain dulled. Heads turned at their entry. Someone stopped talking.

"Meiter? What the-?"

Torn carved a hole through the crowd with Cass. The place was too dark to make out faces. He made straight for a large square table in the middle of the open part of the hideout. The light over the table revealed a burly man with black muttonchops. A scar on his lip gave him something of a sneer. It made the confusion on his face almost comical.

Cass emitted a _hurk_ sound when Torn threw him against the table. Behind him sounded a chorus of guns being cocked. With his own pistol still pointed at Cass, Torn levelled a steely look at the man behind the table. He used his free hand to pull his hood and scarf back. Someone to his right swore violently, and murmurs scurried through the gathered rebels.

"Meiter's not his real name," Torn deadpanned. "His real name is Cass, he's KG Intelligence, and he's been spying on your group for the last year, two weeks, and three days."

The man behind the table bored holes in him with his eyes. The scar on his lip quivered. Torn couldn't tell if it was rage or shock. It didn't matter either way. All Torn knew was the hammering of his heart and the spiky chill of adrenaline hiding his own fear.

A gun – short-range, explosive, would probably kill the people on the other side of him, too – appeared in his periphery level with his eyes. A small equally fierce-looking woman with yellow hair wielded it with steady hands and angry blue eyes. She cocked it with a smooth practiced motion and then spoke.

"Gimme one good reason why I don't blow you away right here, you Krimzon son-of-a-bitch?"

She made _Krimzon_ sound like a curse word. The people to his left scattered from her blast radius. So much for that buffer.

"Because you're gonna want what I have to offer," Torn replied.

She scoffed.

This time the man behind the table spoke. "And what would that be, exactly?"

The man's eyes still smoldered, but his head cocked to the side, and he hadn't moved to draw a weapon. At least Torn had somebody's attention. Torn dropped the magazine out of his pistol with one hand and then ejected the chambered round as smoothly as the woman had loaded hers. She was really almost too young to be called a woman. More of a girl really. He tossed the pistol onto the tabletop. Cass flinched away from it.

Torn took a breath and spread his hands.

"That would be me."

* * *

AN: Here's the first step into chapter work for me in a while. I had intended for it to only be a oneshot, but then I wanted to include more of the stuff referenced in the other Jak and Daxter stuff I've got, and things got out of control. Short start, but follow-on chapters should be longer. Let me know what you think, as always!


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: The Acting of a Dreadful Thing**

A muffled laugh, short and harsh, floated up to the front of the room. Several more followed. The girl with the gun rolled her eyes. Torn did his best to ignore them and the sweat beading on his upper lip and prickling his back between his shoulder blades. He kept his eyes on the man behind the table, the proxy of power for their absent leader, this nameless Shadow. Torn wracked his brain for the man's name among Cass's reports. Lanus, widower, father of two. Works at the race track as a mechanic. To his credit, the man kept his own dark eyes locked with Torn's.

Good. If a ranking member of this little rebellion couldn't meet him eye-to-eye, then Torn was going to burn the place to the ground. If weakness lingered here, they wouldn't stand a chance against Praxis.

The girl stepped closer and pressed the muzzle of her blaster against his cheek. "What exactly makes you think we would ever trust someone like you?"

From his vantage point on the business end of her weapon, Torn forced himself to stare her down. She stared balefully right back at him. The angle of her shot would blow the top of his skull out.

"How well would you say this little endeavor is going?" Torn's eyes flicked back to Lanus. "Hm?" He turned away from the girl to look at the other rebels gathered. Cold unreadable faces stared back him. Their regard crackled over him like static. On the surface, they looked to be nothing more than average citizens. Most of them carrying the scruff of harsh living in a warring city. A few scattered cigarette ends glowed at him from the relative murk of the room making skulls of the faces of the men and women smoking them. There was anger there. Repression. But no spark, only embers.

Torn scoffed.

"I don't exactly see the faces of victory in this little shit hole." He turned back to Lanus, attempting to ignore the weapon still pointed in his face. "I've read all the reports this spy has brought to the KG and the Council. You're disorganized. Your communication chain is primitive at best, and you haven't accepted a new member in months. You've long since built a basic power structure and a trusted core of people, but you don't know where to go from here."

A hint of chilly anger flashed across Lanus's face. "Insulting our methods isn't exactly a good way to keep your head here, KG. Get to the point."

"It's not insult. It's fact. You need to step up, you need an edge on the Baron, and…"

The man rose an eyebrow at the pause. "And?"

Torn looked down to find Cass staring up at him from where he lay pressed against the table with a gun held to his head, too, by another rebel. He'd been so excited to show Torn his progress with the Underground. So validated. And now Torn was going to rip it all out of his hands.

"And I want out."

"You were just using me," Cass said suddenly, his voice a harsh whisper. "Traitor."

Lanus pressed on, ignoring the spy. Something like amusement crinkled his eyes. "You? Of all the Krimzon Guards to come to me, it's _you_?" He planted his hands on the table and leaned forward. "You. The youngest man to wear a mask. The man who destroyed all our supply chains. The butcher of Block 13. You've personally put more family members of the people in this room either in jail or an early grave than any other KG has in the last ten years. Captain of the Krimzon Guard and Marshal of the First Legion, the best of the Baron's officers. The great _Torn_." The rebel stepped around the table as he spoke. The girl stepped aside for him, but her aim never wavered. Torn found himself nearly nose-to-nose with him. He was heavier set than he looked at a distance, and a wave of oil and hydraulic fluid fumes wafted from him chased by the low quality tobacco that stained his teeth.

Torn felt himself bristle instinctively at Lanus's derision, but the string of accusations – no, truth – the string of truth made his gut turn. To him, the supply chains had been smuggling rings bringing in weapons and violence; after he crushed them and put several dozen perpetrators in prison, an epidemic of bog cough swept the Slums. And Torn had signed off on the destruction of 'illegal' medication being brought in supposedly as just things to sell on the black market.

Block 13 went up in flames to smoke out a drug kingpin. The thug and his gang died of his own hard headedness, but the tactic also killed several families trapped in the building by the thugs. Time and again, he justified it as being for the greater good, eyes only on purging Haven City of criminals and his own meteoric rise towards false greatness. He might physically stand half a head taller than this gritty, unforgiving rebel, but the man's words made Torn microscopic.

Lanus shifted the wad of chew to the other side of his mouth and crossed his thick arms over his chest. The scar on his lip deepened his scowl. "So, like we said, give me a good reason why I don't just let Tess here blow your brains across this room and maybe give us all some closure?"

The hot swell of righteous anger building in the room made the hairs on Torn's neck stand up. Eyes on his back like wolves circling for the kill. Lanus's eyes darted to Torn's forehead where he no doubt could see sweat beading up. Torn gave himself two heart beats' worth of silence. Having made masking his emotions into an art form long ago was the only thing keeping the panic rising in his chest at bay.

"If you wanted me dead, you would've had her do it already," Torn rasped. He scrambled around for the words he'd practiced to himself before leaving the barracks earlier that night.

 _Dead Town. People left to die. Citizens starving in the streets. Dark Eco experiments._

 _The people I've killed._

 _Do what's right._

He stood up a little straighter and fought the urge to crawl inside himself. He put on a brave face and forced himself to use the pain in his side for clarity.

"I'm not proud of what I've done. I've let myself be blinded by my own ambition. And you have every right to kill me where I stand. As long as I serve the Baron, I'm a danger to you." His insides felt like they wanted to crawl out of his throat, and he fought every nerve and muscle to keep from shaking. His own body wanted to fight him for even thinking of rebelling. He made himself turn to Tess and look straight down the barrel back at her. "But I don't want to serve the Baron anymore. I can't believe in his cause anymore. And …" Tess's blue eyes drilled back into him, unreadable besides the hate burning there. "…if I can't convince you that I want to help you drag his lying, disloyal ass off that throne, then you better kill me here and now, because I'm not going back to serve him." He leaned into the barrel, pressing his forehead against the cool metal and speaking through clenched teeth. "I'm done being complicit in his tyranny."

All Torn could hear was the thudding of his own heart, the room having fallen into a dangerous silence. Tess's finger slipped into the trigger guard.

"Wait."

The rebels moved again, startled out of their silence by a waifish woman materializing from a dark corner, her hand outstretched to touch Tess's shoulder.

Torn looked up to find a ghost standing before him. He felt his face go slack in shock

Imre. The journalist from the Haven Tribune.

One of the only other witnesses to have made it from the wall in Dead Town to tell the tale. Until she started telling the tale too loudly. A week after Torn made it back into his office chair, Erol stalked into the room and slapped a file down on his desk. " _Don't say I never did you any favors_ ," he'd sneered and left. The report summarized what the KG termed a 'strategic removal' – the removal of a person identified to be detrimental to the security of the city and the Baron's rule. It had been for Imre and her cameraman, Flynn. In the file, the strategic removal was marked 'complete.' The approval authority signature block had Torn's credentials in it, though he'd never laid eyes on the initial request to begin with.

She didn't look any better than he did in the month or so since Dead Town; her cheeks were hollow and her left eye covered in gauze behind her glasses. Her mouth made an amused quirk no doubt in response to the look of dumb amazement on his face. "Don't look so surprised, Captain. It takes more than an inept KG hit squad to take me down."

"I didn't…I didn't know they…"

"That they'd tried to silence me? If I wasn't prepared to handle the consequences, I wouldn't have tried to push the story."

"What about …Finn? Flynn?"

Her expression sharpened. "He's dead."

Torn, at a loss as to why her appearance and Flynn's death were suddenly causing his throat to close up, pressed a hand to his side and had to cough before he could speak. Pain shot through his ribs like lightning.

"I'm sorry," he said. He was suddenly aware of Tess's eyes watching the engagement with something like curiosity. Lanus stepped closer.

"Imre, when you said you had help getting away from the Sacred Site…" he started.

What Torn didn't know was what exactly the Tribune tried to put out to the public about Dead Town. He actively avoided any mention of the event. They'd led off with Charlie retreating and Torn screaming at a fleeing lieutenant. The broadcast made it about five minutes before the Baron's media controllers caught it and shut down the nets. Most copies of it were then rapidly purged and the hit put out on Imre and Flynn. Flynn was cut down as they fled the flaming ruins of the Tribune building, but she managed to fool the hitmen that she'd died in the fire. She lost an eye for it but, not many people outside of those gathered at the interlocks and the handful of survivors that got out really knew of Torn's involvement.

Imre watched Torn with the eye she had left, her expression cautious but compassionate.

"Torn and some of the grunts left in Alpha took us out with them and evacuated people while we still had the time," she said. The assembled rebels pressed in to hear her better, hanging on her words. Most had only hearsay to go on about the atrocities that happened outside the new wall, and that had been enough to push more of the populace to act. The event bolstered the Underground's pending acceptance roster in the last few weeks. "He saved Flynn more than once. He even let me have a gun. And he nearly died doing it."

She looked now at Tess and Lanus. "If that's not indicative of some sort of redemptive quality, then I don't know what is. You've got a golden opportunity here to use one of the Baron's most influential figures to help take him down. Maybe he's been a jackass for most of his life, but he's _here_ , isn't he?" She levelled a finger at Cass now. His face creased into a snarl, and he struggled briefly against his captor. "If you want an indicator that this isn't a doublecross, look at _that_ sack of shit."

More than a few heads turned to look at the spy, but Torn could only stare in awe at the small woman.

"What blocks did you evacuate?"

The sudden question pulled his attention back to Tess. She kept her gun up, but the hate in her eyes had de-escalated to a simmering mistrust.

Flashes of the event cut through Torn's mind. "Seven through Nine." He'd been taken down by a Metal Head himself in the last stretch of Nine. Had knocked Flynn out of the way. He could practically hear its hot breath in his ear and its teeth in his shoulder. "The other half of those left got Ten and Eleven, but by the time they got to Twelve, the Metal Heads had overrun the wall. Most of One through Seven got out when…" When they saw the backs of his men as they abandoned their posts. "When they saw the retreat."

Something in Tess's face twisted in pain at the mention of Block Twelve, but it disappeared within an instant. Only then did her hand waver and her weapon lower ever so slightly. She looked at Lanus for direction at this point.

Like Tess, his craggy face no longer displayed a fierce anger, but he didn't exactly smile and welcome Torn with open arms. He nodded once to Tess, and she stepped away, blending in with the gathered group. Torn felt some of the tension in his shoulders lift as the blaster pointed in a direction other than his face. The man stepped forward suddenly, jamming a finger under Torn's nose.

"I swear, if you make me regret this, you'll not see the end of the day."

Torn looked between the finger and the man. "Got it. What do you need me to do?"

Lanus stepped back, his eyes narrowed and meaty hands clasped in front of him. His face twitched into something that Torn supposed should have been a smile, but it came across as more of a grimace.

"Baby steps. First, what do you suggest we do with Johnny Turncoat over here?"

He gestured to the struggling Cass like a gameshow host showing what was behind Door Number 1. The anger in Cass's face was an entirely different anger than that of the rebels. It was straight venom. Betrayal. Torn took a breath.

"If he goes free, we're all fucked." He looked back to Lanus. "I can cover for him disappearing easily enough, but it'll be hard to explain it away if he waltzes into the command HQ with a tale to tell."

Lanus side-eyed Torn for a moment, halfway facing the table as he regarded the spy. Torn stared back at him. Then, Lanus jerked a thumb towards the back of the hideout, and the rebel restraining Cass hauled him off the table. The spy started screaming.

" _Traitor_! _You mother-fucking traitor_! I'll ki-" And, then they were out of earshot. Torn felt sick. He hoped it didn't show. Lanus made another gesture. Torn heard a rustle behind him.

"We'll be in touch, Captain."

He didn't even get the chance to ask how or when. A bag went over his head, and someone kicked his feet out from under him. He hit the floor and felt his ribs creak as most of the air left him. Many hands grabbed him and dragged him away. His own painful wheezing covered up most of the sounds going on around him, but they didn't go back out the same door he had entered. Instead, there were a number of twists and turns and then suddenly they dumped him outside onto the wet ground. The hands disappeared, and he lay there for a second, waiting for the kicks or something equivalent, but none came.

With a groan, he reached up and pulled the bag from his head. He was alone on his back on a darkened street. Rain still pattered off the sidewalk, set in for the night. The air left him again in a semi-terrified sigh, and he let his head fall back onto the ground. He laid there a long time, shivering as the adrenaline left him and blinking against the rain.

He kept seeing the fear and fury in Cass's eyes as they dragged him away.

* * *

"You're late."

It wasn't often Ashelin got the jump on Torn in the mornings. His workaholic tendencies had become legendary at this point. Today, though, he actually flinched at her voice as he strode in through the door. The hunted look on his face relaxed when he recognized her.

"Long night," he said at the top of a tired sigh. He wore armor today. Newer pieces stuck out like sore thumbs on his left shoulder and torso, replacing the pieces he lost at Dead Town. He wore them like they didn't fit well, and they made the duller, scarred pieces even duller and more scarred.

She reclined on a chair with her boots propped up on his desk, a datapad in one hand and an arm thrown over the back of the chair. She let a beat of silence pass and looked him once over.

"I'd like to talk about it."

He nodded once and closed the door behind him. "Cass was one of your old squadmates, wasn't he?"

"Formerly, yes." She turned to face his desk as he walked by. Only because she knew him well was Ashelin able to tell that something bothered him. Maybe it was the loss of a good spy. Personnel losses among the Guard seemed to hit him a little harder these days. "Cass was probably the best of us. I don't know who's running Intel these days, but I have to hand it to them. They do train their operators well."

Torn only grunted in response as he sat down stiffly, wincing. He took a moment to get his computer running. Ashelin watched him and noted the way he avoided her gaze.

"Not well enough, apparently," he grumbled. She arched an eyebrow at him.

"Everything okay?"

"Okay as it can be having lost a valuable double agent in what's probably going to be the first real rebellion we see in Haven City," he growled, eyes starting a rapid scan of the computer screen. "Somehow the Underground found out about him. The whole meeting was a ruse. Took him the minute he walked in the door."

"What did you do?"

"Listened. At first." He paused. "Tried to get what info I could and tried to get someone on the horn for backup, but they must have been expecting company. A few came out of the hideout shooting."

"And you didn't shoot back?"

"Didn't have a gun. The point was to observe, figure 'em out, not flush 'em out. Validate the last year of Cass's life living with the enemy." He snorted humorlessly. "I took it up with Intel when I got back. We're oh-for-two on this one."

"I imagine this will put the Underground higher up on Intel's kill list finally."

Again, Torn winced. He coughed once, eyes watering. "Yeah," he grunted.

Ashelin finally moved her boots from his desktop. "Do you at least remember where the hideout was?"

The look he shot her was more disgruntled than she expected. "Of course I do. Intel said they'd send in a forensics team to investigate."

"Are the rebels not there anymore?"

Torn shook his head, growing quiet, fingers picking away at his keyboard. He might be big and bad on the parade field, but he still typed with only his index fingers like a child. Were he not in such a bad mood, she might chide him for it. But today? Today, he seemed to be on the border of one of those moods. The type of mood she'd found him in the day he woke up in the hospital – withdrawn, numb until someone engaged with him, and then he was a viper, striking fast and savage.

"No," he said finally. He turned, finished with his email, to rest his elbows on the desktop. "They've gone to ground."

Ashelin nodded grimly to herself. Despite wanting to dig at the root cause of Torn's moodiness, she had wanted to find out what happened with Cass from the source first and not the dry, technical writing of an Intel report. Given his terse replies, she probably could have just gone with the report.

"Smarter than they look, then. They were definitely planning for him to be followed or accompanied."

He nodded, looking her in the eye finally. Nothing there in his face enlightened her to anything deeper than general fatigue and a moroseness that had been lingering around him like smoke for the last month. Ashelin felt her own expression soften.

"You should get some rest," she said. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and then, opened it again.

"I can't," he half whispered, staring down at his hands. The wall between her and his state of mind opened wide for a moment, and he seemed to age another ten years, face gray, dark smudges beneath his eyes. Then, he closed up again like waves crashing in on each other. He glanced at the chrono on the wall before getting up. "I have to go meet with Kenth about duty allocations now that we're three platoons short."

He put a hand on her shoulder as he left the office. The orderly room outside snapped to attention as he passed through. Ashelin watched after him a moment, troubled.

She trusted Torn implicitly. They'd known each other long enough and had been together long enough for her to do so. But, she wasn't sure if it was this change in Torn that troubled her more or the concurrence of his behavior with the disappearance of an agent who, by any stretch of the imagination, should never have been at risk of discovery. Guilt, maybe? Guilt that he'd been there and couldn't stop it.

Ashelin pushed herself up from the chair and followed in Torn's wake. The orderly room snapped to attention again. She didn't bother putting them at ease before leaving the room. Once this incident was wrapped up, she'd pull Torn aside and talk with him. There just hadn't been time since he'd left the hospital. She'd been there when he woke up, and that had been a relatively happy time. In the weeks since, though, he became more and more of a ghost. And she would be lying to herself if it didn't hurt that he didn't seek her out as often anymore.

The hallway from the orderly room took her away from the First Legion's command section where Torn's office was and towards the personnel section. From there, she stepped into an elevator to head down to the bottom floor and the Intel offices. She had some research to do. Besides the regular patrols she ran, her supervisor had decided she should start looking inwards into the Guard for more opportunities. She would have been content to keep the city clean, but the man had a point. Plus, she found an affinity for investigations and running coordination efforts between the various KG entities. Hell, it might even get her closer to working with her father directly.

As she stepped from the elevator, a brusque, upright figure nearly collided with her. A snarl curled his features a moment before he recognized her. "Ah, Ashelin. I do apologize. Didn't see you there," Erol said, smarm coloring his words and turning them rancid.

"I don't know how not. What's it like having to look up at everything?"

Erol sucked in a breath through his teeth, tisking lightly. "Snark doesn't suit someone with the charisma of a wet blanket, my dear," he retorted as he stepped into the elevator.

"And, no matter what you think, just because your hair makes you taller doesn't mean people actually think you are."

The elevator doors closed before he could reply, and Ashelin casually flipped him the bird through the gap right before they closed. She had a feeling Erol might have been in the Intel section doing what she was about to do, though, he likely would be doing it to further dislodge Torn from his place as Marshal. Command positions in the Krimzon Guard could easily go to someone based on their ability to scheme rather than their merit. A method her father said encouraged ruthlessness in his commanders, and thus in how they waged war. Sniff out the weakness, strike where they're soft. After all, who would expect nothing less than ruthlessness on the battlefield against an enemy like the Metal Heads?

Well, The Marshals in the Second and Third Legion have come and gone, but the current Krimzon Guard Commander, an aging man named Vex, and Torn to a certain extent, had kept their seats far longer despite that particular mentality.

Either way, Ashelin was just glad that Praxis had the wherewithal to know who keep in charge. Since departing from the path her father laid out for her, Ashelin still carried doubts he would even let her near a command position, but one could always hope.

The grunt behind the Intel desk, conspicuously inconspicuous without the characteristic tattoos of a KG, jumped to his feet when she walked in.

"I need you to pull the reports from the Ruling Council's Initiative Number 117A. Originator was Agent 111403 – Cass."

* * *

AN: This chapter borks up some of the continuity in my oneshot _Adrift_ , so if you're familiar with that, this now becomes the primary reference. I'll go back and edit _Adrift_ as time permits. Also, Erol's not that short – he's still taller than Jak in most of the cutscenes, but not nearly so much as Torn and Ashelin.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: The First Motion**

Putting on a shirt still hurt, but at least at this point, he had gotten used to it. Torn left an idle hand over the half-healed stitches, lost momentarily in the perpetually authoritarian lines of the tile in the examination room.

"Well, you're getting there."

The doctor, a white-blonde stick insect of a man named Brose, stuck some X-rays onto a viewing panel and pondered them, fingering his pointed chin. Torn glanced up. The synthetic materials they'd fashioned to replace the shattered portion of his ribcage stood out in sharp relief next to the foggy image of natural bone next to it. A smudge of swollen and scarred tissue blurred the edges.

"What the hell does that mean?" Torn asked, wrinkling his nose as he reached for his armor.

Brose's thin eyebrows rose appraisingly as he examined the image. "You're not coughing up black phlegm yet, so the synth must be compatible," he replied, tossing a hand around lightly. "Which is a Precursor's-damned miracle in the first place, because _that_ was a risky move."

"Good to know. Now. Weeks later."

The doctor waved a hand flippantly again at Torn's sarcasm like he was swatting away a bothersome gnat. "Half of the synth projects have completely rejected whatever we've put in them, but push comes to shove, you simply must replace bone structure that's been lost, and nobody wants to put money into a long term solution. And, we don't have the Eco to keep people in a stasis tank." He eyed the image for a beat of silence, brushing his fingers over it idly as if touch could glean more information than merely looking at it. "Well, that _was_ a large projectile that hit you."

Torn fought and lost against an exaggerated roll of the eyes. Dr. Brose plucked a transparent flimsy from the folder in his other hand and held it up against one of the images on the viewing board, comparing the day's X-rays to an initial one done right after Dead Town. "But, yes. You're getting there," he mused. He turned smartly on one heel and sat down at a desk across the room from where Torn stood snapping his armor into place next to the exam table. "Give it another few weeks, and you'll be right as rain. Take it easy until then. The restriction on heavy lifting and aerobic exercise stays, but I'll clear you to do some light physical activity. Like being out of bed." He fired a disgruntled look at Torn. "Oh, wait. You're already up."

"And then, what? A six month prescription to whatever painkiller of the month you've been giving to every grunt who comes in with a sore knee or a cold?" Torn shot back as he worked the snaps on his breastplate.

Displeasure turned to genuine ire as Brose shot him a sour look over his oversized spectacles. The action wrinkled the four-pointed star tattoo on his forehead. "You're lucky to even be walking right now, so watch your tone with me, Captain."

If the doctor didn't already outrank him by some years, Torn might have let himself get offended. But, he had a point. Brose was from a time where to be a certified Krimzon Guard physician was to be one of the more gifted trainees to go through the candidate process. His tall, harsh frame had been through every ounce of abuse Torn's had, and he had to learn proficiency in battlefield medical skills the entire time. Only KG handled KG, and barring the Intel agents, even their doctors earned their tattoos. So, Torn bit back a retort and adjusted the last plate of armor on his shoulder.

"Sorry, Doc," he managed.

Brose looked less than convinced. He rummaged around in a drawer for a note pad. "We told you to stay put after the surgery. You'd have made much better progress with an extra week off your feet," he said without looking at Torn. "Here's a prescription for a refill on non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. Thins the blood, so don't get shot again. Over-the-counter will do for pain management if you really need it. I'd have liked to run you through one last round of Eco treatment, but the stuff's damned hard to come by these days, as you know." He held out the slip of paper with something unintelligible written on it but didn't let go when Torn went to take it from his hand. He levelled a stern, piercing look at Torn over the wire-thin frames of his lenses. "In all seriousness, Torn, take it easy. You'll already have a hell of time in the future with this sort of injury, and if you keep stressing it, I'm not going to volunteer to carve scar tissue out of you so you can breathe again, you ungrateful thing."

Torn wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or be annoyed. "You gotta work on your bed side manner, Brose. It's awful."

Brose clicked his tongue and released the paper with a sigh. "The Baron asked me to keep his men on their feet, not coddle them."

"Have a good day, Brose."

" _I'm_ not treating you if you let yourself get pneumonia either!" the doctor shouted after Torn as he left the room.

An hour after visiting Doc Brose and a quick visit to the pharmacy, Torn went straightaway to his next errand – cleaning up Dead Town. 'Cleaning up' was used in lieu of any better term, as he'd learned in the couple briefings he'd attended with the Council. The anti-inflammatories seemed to work. He didn't feel like he was breathing through a straw anymore, at least

Enroute, straddling a red one-person zoomer high over the civilian lanes below, he mentally chewed on his other source of anxiety besides the half-healed hole in his chest. It had been two weeks since he'd turned on Cass. The mere thought of it made his guts clench like his soul was imploding and sucking the rest of him into the subsequent black hole. He'd caught himself jiggling a nervous knee in meetings now, a habit he'd never had before. Loud noises made him jump. He didn't sleep well.

How would they get a message to him? Did they have a mole embedded somewhere in the KG? Would it be a late night kidnapping? What _had_ they done with Cass? They'd already fled their previous hideout and still the forensics team hadn't discovered any leads. He'd been back enough to grill the investigators; it made sense, since he'd started heading up the project, and he did have a vested interest in finding them. What the rest of the KG didn't know was that it was to help the rebels avoid capture. Well, that was his intent, anyway. Hard to give them the tip off if he couldn't get a hold of them.

The city gave way to the sea when he crossed the far eastern wall. Another zoomer hovered roughly a hundred feet or so out over the water as Torn approached on his own machine. Erol's bug-eyed mask turned to regard him as he approached. "It's about time, Captain," he said. A yellow-gloved hand gestured to the activity going on below them at the base of the old wall. "You almost missed the opening volleys."

Torn didn't answer. Erol managed not to sound combative today, but Torn still didn't quite feel like he had the strength to discuss the event without emotion. He sideslipped into position roughly within arm's reach of Erol's zoomer, using a pattern of rapid blinks to command his mask to zoom in on the site below.

The Council's grand plan to 'clean up' Dead Town was to flood it. A quarter of the sector touched up against the desert where the Metal Heads had converged a month prior. Water surrounded the rest of it, a feat of engineering in Mar's time to claim ground for the city from the sea and provide a natural barrier in addition to the wall itself. Several Assault Cats, a heavier attack version of the average Hellcat cruisers the beat cops used, hovered at regular intervals near the base of the wall where it met the water. The gunship commanders checked in over the universal comm channel used by the City Defense Group, and then the ranking air boss gave the command.

" _Drops at the ready…Release._ "

From the bottom of each cruiser dropped a red barrel with a blinking light on it. The barrels splashed into the water next to the base of the wall. Simultaneously, the cruisers turned and hovered some hundred meters or so away.

" _Light it up_."

One by one, huge explosions created geysers in the water at the base of the wall. Chunks of debris followed the water. Some of it pinged off the bottom of the cruisers.

Torn grunted. "Didn't hold back, did they?"

"Would _you_ have held back?"

"Fuck no."

Follow-on explosions from smaller charges blossomed in lines running up the wall from where the barrels dropped. More than a few sections of wall collapsed. The fall of the debris pushed large waves out into the water only to have it rush back into the sector through the new holes. Displaced sea water ran in rivers down the deserted streets, covering stone and metal and even collapsing several buildings as it pulled at their foundations. Towers and high-rises now poked up from the dark waters like the fingers and arms of men drowning in mud.

Slowly and surely, the sea took back its lost ground, and Dead Town was flooded. Torn zoomed back out on his viewpoint, thankful for his mask. The flooding wouldn't reach every inch of the sector, but at least it would wash out most of the dark Eco left by the Metal Heads. They would see in time if it helped any. The environmentalists complained about the impact on the sealife, but a short meeting between the Baron and Environmental Engineering Commander ended the dissent.

Erol crossed his arms. His armor creaked audibly. "Well, that's that. All your 'blood and sweat' washed out to sea."

By his tone, he wasn't lamenting the swift erasure of the place where KG gave their lives. Torn mulled over his words a moment, letting them create an anger to eclipse the anxiety in his chest.

"We still haven't had that talk I promised you," Torn said.

"What talk was that?"

Torn pointed to the last standing guard tower on the northern portion of the collapsed wall. "I was in that pillbox. Gus had half his head blown up. Metal Heads were overrunning the wall. You were trying to get me to abandon my post and then pulled my men out from under me. And, you had the gall to suggest that I was wasting my time on a bunch of, how'd you put it? Bottom-feeding peasants living off the Baron's handouts?"

Where Sears made her last stand with Bravo.

Where he watched the last of First Legion's deserters flee into the streets below.

An echo of the fury from that day rumbled in the back of his mind. There with it floated the image of how easily he could draw his weapon and end Erol's miserable little existence here and now. How his body would fall from his zoomer to hit the water below. How nobody would even turn a head at it back at Headquarters. Torn felt a muscle in cheek clench.

"And, I wanna say there was…" Instead, he chuckled and put his hands on his hips. He had Erol's rapt attention now. His second-in-command's eyes burned at him from behind their red lenses. "And this is crazy talk probably, but…from what I remember, you said, right after Emerys came in to tell me who tucked tail and ran like cowards…you said, _save a space for me in Hell, Torn_. That's what you said." Torn barked out a short harsh laugh. "Kinda made it sound like you've wanted me dead."

Erol didn't speak, but Torn could feel the ice in the silence even over their mask comms. It was an interesting silence, equal parts deference and defiance. Torn had been a constant presence in Erol's career, from his first step onto the training grounds to now as Torn's Lieutenant; no matter the situation, that element of fear and intimidation would always be there. Torn had known for a while his primary challenge as Marshal would be to keep the wolf at his side from taking him by the throat. He needed to make an impression.

Torn lashed out. He snagged Erol by his armor and dragged him from his zoomer. Simultaneously, he kicked the aircraft away from them with a long leg so that Erol hung from Torn's grip. Erol's hands scrambled for purchase against Torn's pauldrons and his feet kicked the air. Torn put his face close to Erol's, close enough for their foreheads to touch. He fought to keep his voice under control as he felt the stitches in his side start to strain. Thankfully, Erol stuck to relatively light armor.

"It's gonna take a lot more than that to kill me, you pissant," Torn hissed. "I'm giving you a pass today. You better fucking try harder next time, though, or there'll be Hell to pay."

Erol didn't get the chance to reply. Torn opened his hands. With a clatter of armor as he tried to grab the zoomer in his descent, Erol plummeted towards the water below. Torn leaned over slightly to make sure the bastard didn't hit head first and kill himself, kicked his zoomer into drive, and headed back to the city.

* * *

Smoke drifted lazily up towards the ceiling from the end of a cigar left to burn itself out in an ash tray. Praxis had long since banned the use of tobacco within the Palace. It promoted unprofessionalism and in his opinion, addiction made men weak. Ashelin very much doubted the Baron would make his way to her lowly quarters with the rest of the ranking KG. That would require him to leave the lofty heights of his throne.

Ashelin allowed herself a smoke very rarely, but tonight was one of those nights. The last time she had partaken in a cigar, she had been standing on the edge of the parade ground with her fellow Officer Candidates fresh from graduation. Cass had been among them, an earnest classmate with more than skill than any of them at talking his way into someone's trust.

Now, all that remained of him was a year's worth of reports and some less than satisfying details of his disappearance.

Ashelin pulled her feet from her desktop to lean forward and review the notes she had made so far on a small datapad. She estimated she was about halfway through Cass's reports. He really did talk too much. She sighed, glancing at the forgotten cigar. Reaching over, she finished it off, jamming the smoldering end into the tray.

She did not possess the patience required of Krimzon Guard Intelligence operatives to carefully work a case nor did she have Torn's gruff respectability, so following a more detached investigative authority track after her mandatory tour as a beat cop made sense. But Cass was damn good at being a Ghost, KG slang for their spies. Hence why this particular project had engrossed him so thoroughly. To get the chance to infiltrate the first whisper of rebellion in Haven City would have been irresistible, and he would have given his all to make it work and to bring them to justice.

Given the amount of detail in his reports, the Council likely skimmed most of it. They generally didn't take things seriously until it affected them, and an at-the-time grassroots dissent movement would not have been on their radar nearly as much as, say, tracking down Damas's missing son.

The early entries laid out the identities of the original founders – a man named Lanus and some obscure figure called 'The Shadow.' Ashelin wouldn't be surprised if Lanus himself was The Shadow and merely used the moniker as a decoy to keep the attention off himself. Cass then went on to describe the addition of a few other people added into a trusted group of cadre. Most of this information he uncovered after gaining entry. Lanus and The Shadow recruited via several locations around the city, mostly seedy areas in the Slums and around the Port. One or two came from Main Town.

Ashelin had to hand it to the citizens of Haven City; they weren't fools. Living under the sort of authoritarian rule that Praxis enjoyed, they knew that to be indiscrete meant their lives. By the end of month two, the rebel network stretched across half the city, even reaching as far as the Stadium due to Lanus's position as a mechanic there. Influential they might not be, but even Ashelin conceded that, were it stronger, dissent that deeply embedded in the population could become difficult to uproot.

Cass recorded everything – cache drops, locations of their rotating monthly meetings, rosters of those attending, how many guns they had, where they recruited from, weekly code words, the works. Like the people he hid among, he knew better than to be indiscrete, and he would have made note of any potential discovery. Had it gotten too bad, he would have bugged out before getting discovered.

She glanced over at the other files on her desk – Intel's report on the night of Cass's capture, and the details of the forensics findings from the hideout. She had looked through the Intel report so many times at this point, she nearly had it memorized. The forensics report, though, she would need a little more time with. She needed to understand this Underground before she could even begin to guess how they knew about Cass and where they might have fled.

And once she had that, there wasn't a place on the continent she wouldn't be able to hunt them down.

* * *

Some distance away from the Palace, Torn also found himself mired in paperwork in his small two-bedroom apartment. A disheveled stack of papers that used to be a copy of the forensics report from the abandoned rebel headquarters covered most of his desk next to a cup of caf that had long gone cold. From the window above his desk, he could look out over Main Town. Even in this part of the city, where people could forget about the inconvenience of war and poverty and martial law as long as they had their money, the sector looked harsh and grim through the light rain pattering against the window.

Forensics found Cass, or what they thought must have been evidence of him. Torn flicked the edge of the flimsy image. The image was of the red scarf Cass had been wearing that night next to a small yellow placard with a number on it. A knife pinned the scarf to the floor in macabre fashion. Given the distinct lack of other evidence, it had to have been left on purpose. The rebels wanted them to know they had one of their men. They wanted the KG to know they weren't blind to traitors in their midst.

Torn cleared his throat stiffly, trying to ignore a bout of heartburn brought on either by his own guilt or the four cups of caf he'd downed in the last hour. A year of undercover work and two lives down the drain. He drummed his fingers on the small stack of papers. "There's gotta be more," he murmured in spite of himself. He could go back to the Intel desk, try one more time to get the info file on the other spy they'd sent. …No, they'd only turn him away again. There were only so many times he could ask about a restricted file before they would get suspicious. The desk stooge had said the other file was restricted because it was still an open investigation. That didn't answer the question as to why Cass's file was accessible still, of course, but again, the clerk deigned to at least condescendingly explain the difference between an outright disappearance and a confirmed capture. Still, Torn wondered. Perhaps there was something that spy had discovered that Cass hadn't…

Instead, all Torn had to go on was this meager forensics report and whatever Cass had collected. Which he _still_ couldn't access because Ashelin had the program file – and all of Cass's findings – checked out. He had perused the file upon first assuming command of the project in an attempt to commit as much as possible to memory, but Intel wouldn't let the original files out of their site unless it was for a good, i.e., Baron-level approved, reason. Granted, it was in Ashelin's wheelhouse to have control over the relevant files; given Torn's proximity to the incident, project manager or not, the Office of Investigative Authority put her in charge of leading the effort. Torn sighed and rested his forehead on his knuckles. He was at an impasse.

A creak in the hallway spun him around, pistol aimed towards the door. Seven seconds of heart-pounding silence went by before he relaxed. Precursors, this was getting old. He set the pistol down on the desk and got up with his mug. Someone better come either kill him or deliver him from the Baron before he had a heart attack from the stress and caffeine overdose. He half-heartedly joked with himself that it would be Erol. His Lieutenant had walked back into HQ later that day in dry clothes like nothing had happened. He wouldn't, however, meet Torn's eyes.

Halfway across the room, the lights went out.

Torn froze, ears straining to make up for the sudden loss of his eyes.

 _There_.

The subtle swish of someone moving behind him. Over by the door, the faintest of rattle of what must be a shoulder strap against the metal of a rifle stock.

He tightened his grip on his mug, holding it in his hand rather than by the handle, ready to strike.

With a click of the switch, the lights came back on. Torn blinked against the brightness to find Tess leaning against the door frame leading into the hallway. Her hand lingered on the light switch, and she shot a fake smile at him. She cradled her Scatter Gun in one arm. A chuckle burbled up from Torn's throat in relief.

"You move pretty light for a fat man," he said before turning around to face the man at his desk.

Lanus smirked at him from Torn's desk chair, thick arms crossed over his chest. "I prefer the term big-boned," he replied lightly, patting his stomach. "You look surprised to see us. I figured at this point, you'd be anticipating us showing up."

"I was actually starting to wonder if it had just been a hallucination given how thoroughly you managed to disappear."

"The Shadow wanted to send a message," Lanus said.

Torn nodded towards the files on his desk. "Message received. Not even Forensics has been able to glean anything besides what you left on purpose."

Lanus only smiled enigmatically. He seemed to be in a better mood than when they first met. Torn still had to battle the hammering of his heart trying to escape from his chest. "I assume you being here means you're about to ask me to do something, right?"

"Don't make it sound like a chore. You were the one that volunteered." Lanus turned in his seat to glance over the files on the desk, ignoring the gun. He lingered on the photo of the scarf. "Your first test is to get us more intel like this." He held the photo up over his shoulder so Torn could see it from across the room. "I know that spy must have a collection of reports on us somewhere. I want them. I want to know what the KG has on us, and you're going to get it for me."

Torn crossed his arms. "That file's in the hands of the lead investigator. Not even Intelligence can get to it."

"Then, it's good you're canoodling with the lead investigator …Oh, c'mon now, don't get offended," he added rapidly, holding out a warning hand when Torn started to step forward, hands clenched in fists. Behind him, Torn heard Tess rack a round into the chamber of her gun. Lanus's eyes twinkled harshly at him. "Don't be so naïve to think that we wouldn't dig up everything about you before letting you in. You're not the only organization with resources."

Torn hated how his face burned at the comment and how obviously it affected him, but more than anything, he hated the smug look on the man's mutton-chopped face; Lanus had Torn exactly where he wanted him. The rebel took out a small recorder and made scans of the forensics report with it.

"I'm going to give you the coordinates to the new hideout in good faith. As much as Tess here doesn't like you, it'd be quite the waste to not take advantage of the service you're offering." He got up from the desk and turned to Torn. "For a man who's seen what you have, I don't expect infatuation to get in the way of what's right."

The way he met Torn's eyes left little room for anything but sincerity. Despite the icy anger in his chest at a stranger making assumptions, Torn didn't look away. "It won't," he replied.

"Then, like I said, we'll be in touch."

Lanus stepped around him and walked towards Tess and the hallway. "Before you go…" Torn started. Both rebels paused to look back at him. "Did you ever know about a second Ghost in the Underground?"

Lanus and Tess shared a brief, genuinely surprised look. "A spy, you mean? A second one?" Lanus said finally. "What can you tell us about them?"

"Not much. They would have tried to join about the same time Cass did, but we lost track of them about six months ago. The KG is tightfisted with its intel, obviously, or I'd know more. The file's been restricted."

Lanus nodded, mostly to himself than anything. "Good to know. Keep us informed if you find anything."

And with that, they disappeared into the hallway. Torn didn't even hear the door open.


End file.
